Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: “oops, we lied”

I’m sure you remember all the rhetoric about how benign the Muslim Brotherhood was and how it really didn’t have designs on the government of Egypt, right? In fact, we were reassured (well, some of us weren’t) they only wanted a little representation in government and had absolutely no interest in or designs on the presidency. Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader, makes the point back in early February:

We are mindful, however, as a nonviolent Islamic movement subjected to six decades of repression, that patent falsehoods, fear mongering and propaganda have been concocted against us in Mubarak’s palaces the past 30 years and by some of his patrons in Washington. Lest partisan interests in the United States succeed in aborting Egypt’s popular revolution, we are compelled to unequivocally deny any attempt to usurp the will of the people. Nor do we plan to surreptitiously dominate a post-Mubarak government. The brotherhood has already decided not to field a candidate for president in any forthcoming elections. We want to set the record straight so that any Middle East policy decisions made in Washington are based on facts and not the shameful – and racist — agendas of Islamophobes.

Well, apparently that was “then” (when it was important to keep the wool pulled over the West’s eyes, and particularly the eyes of Washington) and this is “now”:

Notwithstanding the official Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s promise not to seek the presidency or any other positions of power, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, 60, member of the MB’s Shura Council and head of the Egyptian Doctors’ Union, has announced he would run for president in Egypt’s coming election.

Who is that again? Oh, yeah, the same MB member that assured us in February that, “The brotherhood has already decided not to field a candidate for president in any forthcoming elections” , the very same Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh. An “independent”?

Good grief, there’s not even any plausible deniability here.

And that then puts this, something else Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh said, in the “laugh out-loud” column for believability:

Our track record of responsibility and moderation is a hallmark of our political credentials, and we will build on it. For instance, it is our position that any future government we may be a part of will respect all treaty obligations made in accordance with the interests of the Egyptian people.

A political leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Thursday [Feb 3] called on any government that replaces Hosni Mubarak’s regime to withdraw from the 32-year-old peace treaty with Israel.

"After President Mubarak steps down and a provisional government is formed, there is a need to dissolve the peace treaty with Israel," Rashad al-Bayoumi, a deputy leader of the outlawed movement, said on Japan’s NHTV.

And he isn’t the only MB leader that’s been making that call. So who should we believe? I’d say probably not the MB guy who said the MB wouldn’t be putting up a presidential candidate but who is now a presidential candidate. Agreed?

Yes, it’s pretty hard to find proof of democratic institutions beginning to flower in Egypt. There’s obviously been a lot of fertilizer spread, but it isn’t the type that grows healthy plants, that’s for sure.

“respect all treaty obligations made in accordance with the interests of the Egyptian people”

Fotouh gets a partial pass on honesty about the treaties – if he believes that the results of breaking the treaty with Israel are worth more to the Egyptian people than a billion dollars per year. Then again, maybe the current administration would continue the financial aid anyway.

In recent years, especially suddenly in the past year or so, it means that the MB and even AQ have learned to tailor their message into something that works well for the Left into arguing that we do nothing against them. For example, early it was quite clear that Bin Laden was fight for Sharia and against Western ideologies. But that was shifted to fighting the ‘western oppressors’ which is more compatible with Left’s “we brought this on ourselves” meme.

The messages coming out now are so compatible, you would have to believe their scripts are coming from the same source. Or at least someone well versed in the message of the Left is now crafting PR for radical Islam.